Engineer Ian Finer with his rocket engine (left), and Fred Kennedy from AMSAT with a model of Kiwisat, a homegrown satellite (images: J. Gregory)

New Zealand's first multi-disciplinary space conference took place in Auckland recently. SpaceUp New Zealand invited engineers, enthusiasts, teachers, and all comers to a weekend of sharing projects and ideas and hopefully making new contacts and inspiring future collaboration. On at the same time was Space Ed, a conference for school teachers organised by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency with featured speaker astronaut Akihiko Hoshide.

The format for the main conference was a little unusual. To allow for greater participation from the attendees the organisers decided to adopt the Unconference format. Space Up New Zealand’s Mark McKay explains the concept to Justin Gregory.